Posts Tagged ‘Literacy’
Best wishes in 2012 from Big Universe.
Happy New Year from Big Universe Learning!
It’s been a joy to be part of the blogging team for this unique educational website, a global online reading and writing community for teachers and pre-K-Grade 8 students. I’ve watched its library shelves fill with high-quality children’s books, its membership grow, and its focus evolve to meet the needs of educators and parents devoted to raising the next generation of readers. What a privilege!
As we put 2011 to bed and welcome in 2012 and its possibilities, I leave you with a RESOLUTION – an acrostic set of tips to maximize your interaction with Big Universe Learning and promote literacy in the new year.
BIG UNIVERSE ACROSTIC for 2012
R is for Reading Levels. Use them to find “just right” books.
E is for Edit. Our Authoring Tool lets you write stories. Don’t forget to proofread.
S is for Share. Message others about favorite Big Universe books on our safe network.
O is for Online. Get online and stimulate dialogue about literacy on our Facebook page.
L is for learning something new every day. Log on and READ!
U is for Unclutter. Remove former pupils’ names from accounts and streamline bookshelves.
T is for Twitter. Follow us!
I is for Images. Use our clipart or upload your own photos to customize your books.
O is for organizing your day. Make time to read in 2012.
N is for navigate. Use the Help page or watch a tutorial to hone your Big Universe user skills.
I put my kids on a top secret mission. They were each to be handed an envelope and instructed to not show ANYone what was inside. But first they needed to construct their working areas. With privacy shields and chairs acting as barriers, each pair built a top secret working area and once given their envelope, they went straight to work. Their mission: to display one of the top 10 ways to become a better reader on a paper no bigger than 9 x 12. Once all groups had completed their mission, the top 10 ways would be revealed.
The kids took their work very seriously and I made sure all groups were provided with the necessary materials: scissors, markers, glue, paper. (Actually, it was kind of fun hamming it up, going to the extreme as I emphasized the importance that each pair worked in secret.) But there was a reason for this secrecy – each group had the same thing in their envelope: READ.
About a decade ago, I went to a guided reading workshop where the presenter, Cindy Merrilees showed the group of us this line of products (that maybe she was involved with creating???) to promote reading. The coffee cup, canvas bag and large poster all have the same image on them. At first, I wanted to buy something, but then I thought, “How much better for my students to create their own version of this!” And we did. My second graders had a ball creating and cutting out the letters that would put together the top 10 ways to become a better reader.
This year in my fourth grade class, I have some reluctant readers and students who just don’t see the value in reading, so I thought it would be fun to create this same visual again. The difference was in the “top secretness” and that was a great way to get these kids invested! As they worked, each pair stayed very focused on their task, taking ownership of their own mission. But once they were done, they were ready to see the others that were revealed.
As each group finished, I collected their poster ever so carefully and asked them to clean up. (It wasn’t until every group was done that I let them roam the room to put things away.) Once the room was back to normal, we gathered in a circle and I very carefully handed the posters back out. I counted to three and simultaneously they all revealed their way to become a better reader.
It took a moment as they looked around the room, but then they started to react.
“Oh, my gosh! They all say read.”
“What?!? They’re all the same?”
A couple kids just smirked an nodded as they looked around the circle.
“Read? Really?”
“Well, I guess that makes sense.”
“You have all told me how much you agree that being a good reader is important,” I concluded for the group. “If you strive to be a better reader, then you have to work at it and the best way to do so is to read, read, read, read,” and the students chimed in, “read, read, read, read, read, READ!”
Then we brought our “read” posters out to the hall and made our display for the rest of the school.
If there is one thing my students learn early on in the school year, it’s the BME Rule. I have a sign in my classroom that states: “The BME Rule – All Good Writing is Following It!”
It has to do with the fact that all good pieces of literature have a beginning, a middle and an end. But in my class, students get this concept drilled into their heads as we listen to music each day during our Active Listening time. When I talk about the BME Rule, I always mention music very simply like this: “All good pieces of writing (and music!) follow the BME Rule!”
And it’s true! Music is a composition that needs to be pleasing to the human ear, just as a story, an article or a poem needs to be as well. Our brains love organization and even the most abstract piece of music will still have some B, M and E!
If you listen to any piece of music, you can find its beginning, middle and end. Sometimes the beginning may be short and the ending can be abrupt, but they are there just the same. Paralleling the BME in music to the stories, reports and poems we write can be yet another effective way to show students an important aspect of good writing.
And you can take it further too. Ask students what makes a good beginning, middle and end in a piece of music:
B – Does it grab the listener’s attention? Does it introduce anything? (instruments/character, themes, foreshadowing)
M – Does it have details? (layers of sound) Does it tell a story? (with various themes or lyrics)
E – Is it exciting/subdued/abrupt? Why and what does that do for the listener? Does the ending wrap things up? How? Does it bring back a familiar theme (ABA form) or introduce something somewhat new (coda)?
This can then be applied to your students’ writing and story creation on Big Universe as they use the writing feature on the site. Their beginning story page will not only introduce their setting and character in words but with the many images they can piece together. Their middles will contain the sequencing of details in words and pictures and their endings will need to be well thought out to make the point they want at the conclusion of their story.
Integrating all these pieces together: music, story, images and creation on Big Universe is a sure fire way to emphasize and utilize the BME Rule!
Storytelling is one of those art forms that naturally connects to all aspects of literacy. Obvious, right? But I wonder how much it is really used in the classroom. I often feel like I need to intentionally place it into my plans to allow my students to do it and yet, if I just gave my students a push in the right direction, they could practice storytelling all the time and become better readers and writers.
How can storytelling help students’ reading and writing? For struggling readers, storytelling is a great alternative to showing what they can do. Without the obstacles of letters, words and conventions, they are able to construct a story or retell a story showing comprehension and knowledge of story structure. The same is true for every level of reader/writer. Storytelling naturally differentiates for all levels. As students add more events, details and descriptions to their stories, they become more skilled at this art form.
With some additional instruction on what makes a good story: character, setting, a problem, sequence of events and a solution at the end, as well as how it pertains to oral storytelling, students will be well on their way. Stories come alive when you take the time to really describe certain things and events in your story too. The first few times a student tells a story it is ok to ask them questions to get them to add more and more details to the story. “What did he look like?” “What was behind the house?” These types of questions help students to visualize the story and tell it more effectively.
When students tell stories, they are automatically reinforcing the concepts of character, setting, plot and sequence. And it you give them opportunities to tell their story to different people or record it and listen, then those story elements are being that much more reinforced. Gaining a new level of knowledge of these elements can help them as readers. They will be better able to recognize them in the books they read in print and online.
Storytelling can also act as a sort of plan for a story. Once students have told a story, especially if they have told it more than once, they are better able to write it down on paper or through their Big Universe account and add meaningful illustrations and pictures to accompany their work.
Kids do love telling stories, so why not use that to our advantage as teachers of literacy? I’m looking forward to using storytelling more and more this coming school year.
~EMP
Picture from http://www.kstoolkit.org/Storytelling
Do you ever have a few minutes in class where you just are not sure what to do? You don’t feel like there is really enough time to get started into a new lesson or project. Literacy is one way to fill those extra minutes!
You might think Literacy is just reading and writing … but I think it is so much more … thinking plays a great role in literacy also …
If Literacy is just reading and writing, there are so many skills involved in reading and writing that one can work on when they have a few minutes here and a few minutes there ….
Here are a few ideas:
- Read one page of a story or just show a picture from a book and let students predict what might happen (Having a book open on Big Universe in case you have a few extra minutes is a great way to take full advantage of the free minute and a valuable resource)
- Challenge students to think of a new character to include in the next story he or she writes. Students can thing about names and characteristics, like hair color, height, eyes, clothes, special abilities. They could even think about parts of the stories they will create with this new character.
- Need a few minutes to practice spelling and vocabulary words? Students could partner up to do this or work individually … even while standing in line waiting to go in the hall.
- Part of learning is being able to ask the questions. Did you know that thinking of questions to ask is one way to develop and support critical thinking skills?
- Have you ever seen a crazy word when reading a story? (Think about some Dr. Seuss stories if you have trouble thinking of any.) Why not let students create words and silly definitions. Students may not realize the power in this form of creative thinking, but they are thinking and learning during this time too!
Take advantage of every opportunity you have for learning, exploration, and discovery ….
image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/26720971@N02/3970279665/
As I look ahead to the fall, constantly planning in the back of my mind all summer, I am thinking about what it means for my students to truly become literate. Literacy refers to the ability to read and write, but it really goes much deeper than that.
In these times of immediate results, social media and mass overload of information, we need to teach our students to be literate in many ways. Students need to gain a deeper level of literacy where they can look at various texts and interpret them for both their validity and content. Students must be able to adequately relay their comprehension and interpretation of texts through oral and written language.
My job as a teacher is less about making sure all the students are caught up and on the right page, and more about meeting students where they are on the continuum of learning and pushing them to reach their next level through differentiation, the use of students’ interests and talents, and, for me, arts integration. Big Universe seems to be a wonderful resource for these goals, especially with differentiation.
As a new blogger for Big Universe, it is my hope that I will become a better teacher of literacy through my own reflection and interaction with Big Universe readers and the use of this amazing resource in my classroom. I am also excited to see the integration possibilities of literature and literacy with the arts.
I can imagine myself using Big Universe to empower students to become motivated learners, gain more autonomy over their reading and writing experiences, and to become more literate in the 21st century. Let the journey begin!
What do you know about early literacy skills?
“Children prepare to read long before they enter school – early literacy is everything children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write. Early literacy is a baby who chews on a book, a toddler who wants his favorite book read over and over, and a preschooler who “reads” the story to you from memory.
Early literacy skills begin to develop in the first 5 years of life.
Brain development research shows that reading aloud to your child every day increases his brain’s capacity for language and literacy skills and is the most important thing you can do to prepare him for learning to read.
Experts now know that:
- The development of language and literacy skills begins at birth.
- Children develop much of their capacity for learning in the first three years of life, when their brains grow to 90 percent of their eventual adult weight.”
(from the Multinomah County Library webpage)
Reading and talking to children as well as surrounding them with a rich language environment is important for building early literacy skills.
FreeReading.net offers activities and interventions materials for various early literacy skills:
There are also ways to participate on FreeReading.net:
- contribute and publish your favorite lesson
I look forward to explore FreeReading.net even more in the future, so be on the lookout for future blog posts about this site and even ways to connect it with Big Universe Learning.
If you explore FreeReading.net and find some great things, please leave a comment here so we can all visit those activities too!
Do you think the title is a bit of an exaggeration? Can you think of some books or stories that include lots of exaggeration? That is one of the features of Tall Tales!
Wonderopolis shares a Wonder of the Day each day about a topic to promote thinking and conversations. One day this week the Wonder of the Day was “Why do they call it a Tall Tale?” To go along with this question, you can find basic information, vocabulary words, questions to promote thinking, and even other resources for finding out more about tall tales. There is even a lesson promoting the reading of tall tales as well as an activity to encourage writing a tall tale.
Focusing on reading types of stories, like tall tales, was something I really enjoyed when I was in the classroom. We would do studies where we would explore many examples of a certain type and then talk about the similarities and characteristics we found. I also liked to introduce a variety of vocabulary words that could be associated with that story type.
Here is some of the information Wonderopolis shares about tall tales:
Tall tales” are stories that are told as if they were true but contain exaggerated or unbelievable parts. Some tall tales are exaggerations of real events, while others are completely make-believe. Tall tales are usually very funny because the exaggerations in the story tend to be the main focus of the whole story.
A key part of American folk literature, tall tales are believed to have started from the bragging contests that tough American frontiersmen would start when they gathered around a fire. Most tall tales come from the 1800s, when courageous explorers had exciting adventures on their way to the Wild West.
If you were looking for interesting ways for students to write and “publish” their own tall tales, the Writing section in BigUniverse could be an option to use!
Even though it is not a traditional tall tale, you might also want to check out this tall tale: Sitka Rose by Shelly Gill. This story could be used as an example of the type of tall tale stories students could write. Students could work in groups to identify the characteristics of tall tales which are evident in this story.
Here are some ways you can use technology to support the study of, as well as the creation of tall tales in the classroom: http://www.vickiblackwell.com/talltales.html
Are there some tall tales that you enjoy reading? What are some ways you teach about tall tales?
My daughter will start Kindergarten in the fall. When I took her to the doctor this week for her shots, we got a bookmark listing things parents can do to encourage literacy (from Smart Start in our county). As both a parent and a teacher, I see many ways these activities can be implemented in both the home and the school to encourage literacy for children of all ages.
- Talk, sing, and play with your child (Expand on what your child says. Talk as you do simple routines together. Recite nursery rhymes and do finger puppet plays…. I had chants and poems we would recite in my classroom at certain times of the day. I often would start saying the first stanza of the NC Official Toast when I wanted to get the attention of the students at the end of group time. This introduced vocabulary, worked on oral storytelling, and established a pattern. )
- Read with your child everyday (Have a regular reading time together that is relaxed and enjoyable. Let your child pick the story. Remember, you want reading to be a pleasurable experience … let children see the books and images on Big Universe to select the book they want to read.)
- Surround you child with reading materials (Visit the library, buy inexpensive books, make home-made books … this is a great way to use BigUniverse … a place to read, create, and share books)
- Keep adult literature in your home (By having books, newspapers, magazines, and work-related materials in your home, your child will recognize the important of literacy. . . As a teacher, I enjoyed reading my book when students read their books during independent reading time so they could see that I valued literacy as well)
- Read books again and again to your children. (Repetition is the key when reading to young children. They learn to predict what will come next and acquire skills such as sequencing through repetition. . . I like that I can put the books my daughter enjoys reading on Big Universe on my bookshelf there so I can easily find them again and again.)
- Point out specific sounds or letters. (As you are driving in your car or walking around the block, point out road signs, restaurant names, and gas stations. You can point out words and letter when reading a book . . . I ask my daughter what shapes and colors she sees as we are riding in the car. I point to the McDonald’s sign and ask what words start with that letter … (my name and her name) Just “play” with letters and words to increase literacy skills.)
My daughter just turned 5, and she will start Kindergarten in August. She loves books (like her momma) and is always wanting to be read a story. When we were reading at bedtime last night, she got upset when I finished reading one of the books. She told me that she wanted to read that book to me. I pointed to the bookcase and told her to go get one, and she could read to me for the next story. She looked up at me and said she didn’t know how to read those but she knew how to read the one I just read.
I started thinking about that book from last night. The story was presented in a predictable pattern. The words on the pages were clearly depicted in the illustrations. This was also a story she had heard several times before, so she knew what to expect (she even caught it when I missed a page). The familiarity of the story and story elements made her feel comfortable.
I want her to become a fluent reader, so that she won’t have to worry so much about the mechanics of reading that she won’t be able to experience the joy the can be found in reading a story. There are several things I could have done with the story I read last night to work on that skill (without sounding too much like a teacher to my child):
- Echo Reading: I could read aloud one or two sentences and then let my daughter attempt to “echo” my reading. This strategy works on sight vocabulary, decoding skills, and oral fluency. My daughter can hear the words and sounds I emphasize when I read and try to do the same thing.
- Easy Reading: I can find stories the contain words and sentence patterns familiar to my daughter. Using this strategy should be pressure-free and enjoyable for both the child and parent/teachers. We could start by taking turns reading sections/pages until she feel comfortable enough to want to read it all by herself. I think great illustrations help here too.
- Repeated Reading: This reading fluency strategy works right along with the saying, “The more you practice, the better you will get.” As a parent or teacher, I often tell my child (or students) that they more we read a story, the more things we will notice about the story. Repeated Reading helps the child know what to expect and how it should sound.
There are many books/stories on Big Universe that I can use with these strategies to work on oral fluency without it seeming like I am working on oral fluency with my daughter. Did you know that one of the ways to search for Big Universe books is by publisher? I have seen it in a list of ways to search Big Universe (I might have even made a list like that), but I had not tried it out until today. One of the publishers is Reading Reading Books, LCC. On the Big Universe page for this publisher, you can find this description:
Reading Reading Books, LLC is an independently owned and operated publishing company located in Reading, Pennsylvania. The books published by Reading Reading Books, LLC are written to promote a young reader’s enjoyment of literature… with books they can really read! Each book is carefully developed by an experienced, certified K-12 Reading Specialist, with a concentration in the area of primary literacy. Our books are ideal for a variety of students including: lower level first graders, on level pre-kindergarten and kindergarteners, elementary school children with special needs, and English as a Second Language learners.
When I saw the second sentence of this description, I knew I had found some books that would be great for me to use with my daughter. This will also be a great publisher to recommend for anyone working with any children who would experience success reading this type of book. I can’t wait to try it out! I think we will start with Bedtime for Carl.
Reading strategies from The Howard Street Tutoring Manual, pages 205-206
